Monday, June 25, 2012

MEN........HELP!!!

I was sitting in small group setting of all young males between the ages of 13-18. The topic was abortion. A lot of these young males had plenty to say and many disagreed with the option of abortion. These young males said that if they were to get a girl pregnant, that they would want her to have the baby. I then asked the question that if one of their friends were to tell them that their girlfriend was pregnant, what advice would they give to their friend. Their response was to tell their friend to "man up and be a father". One young man even said that he told a friend that he would lose respect for him as a man if he didn't step up. After about 30 minutes of the conversation I asked them, do they encourage each other (and their peers) to abstain from sex. All of them said no...in unison. That really surprised me. I then asked them, if their fathers, grandfathers, uncles, mentors (outside of the church), etc encouraged them to abstain and I again I got the same response. Many of the young men say that they are encouraged to talk to girls by their peers and uncles and possibly see how far that they can go and to make sure that they wrap it up. Wrap it up? Really? This really hit a nerve with me.

I think about how we (society) teach our young ladies to abstain and wait for marriage. We treat them as if they are precious jewels (which they are) and that only their husbands should be the ones to be able to appreciate "the gift". Then we (society) teach our young men that they need to "hit it" in order to prove their manhood, but oh, make sure that they wrap it up. This is ridiculous. This can cause such a problem. Think about it, these same young men who are encouraged to prove their manhood are the same young men that are trying to "hit it" with the same young ladies we're encouraging to wait until marriage. What are we doing??? It's time to make a change.

MEN...(fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, cousins, mentors, pastors, friends, god-fathers, nephews, etc)...I am calling on YOU! We, women, need you. Help us encourage these young men to abstain as well. Teach them that a man will wait. There's nothing out here by giving it up to any and everybody. Yes, it's important to teach safe sex but it's much better to teach abstinence.